150 injured as protesters clash with police in Bangladesh

Xinhua Dhaka, April 11 (Xinhua) Around 150 people were injured in clashes between the police and hardcore Islamist activists, who were protesting a new women’s development policy, in Bangladesh capital Friday. The demonstrators were protesting the government’s proposed women’s development policy that seeks to give equal rights to men and women to paternal property.

Among the injured were scores of security personnel and journalists, police said.

In accordance with the Islamic inheritance law a son will get double the share of a daughter of their father’s property. The new policy proposed equal share of son and daughter in their father’s property, which the protesters said was against Islamic law.

Hundreds of helmeted police used batons and tear-gas shells to disperse several hundred Islamic activists who staged demonstration after the Friday prayer outside the national mosque in central Dhaka.

The protesters threw stones and brickbats at the police.

The clash that continued for more than two hours brought vehicular traffic in some parts of the city to a standstill, police and eyewitnesses said.

The protesters demanded resignation of Rasheda K Chowdhury, adviser in the Women and Children Affairs department, the author of the new policy that allegedly violated the Islamic inheritance law.

The government however assured the Islamic scholars and parties that it has no plan to make any law against Islam.

Bangladesh is the third largest Muslim country where Muslim constitutes 88 percent of the total population of 140 million. Xinhua